The Nats try to extend their winning streak to six tonight against the Marlins.

If you've set foot outside at all today, you know there's a hint of fall in the air. The temperature has dropped, the humidity is down, the sun is starting to set earlier in the evening. Which also means baseball season is winding down.

The Nationals are down to their final four series of the year, beginning tonight against the Marlins. They'll travel to Philadelphia next week, host the Braves next weekend, then travel to Florida for the final three games of the year.

John Lannan will be on the mound tonight, looking once again to secure his career-best 10th win. He'll be opposed by veteran Javier Vazquez, who is 3-0 with an 0.45 ERA over his last three starts.

I'm back at the ballpark all weekend, so please check back for updates throughout…

No Morse, no Werth in the Nats starting lineup.Translation: Davey is content with the winning streak and he wants everyone rested and ready to back Strasburg in front of a big crowd tomorrow, so this game isn't high-priority.

JaneB-If anything, recent history suggests we are MORE likely to win. Seems like we always break out when we run out those Alex Cora, Wil Nieves, Alberto Gonzalez type lineups. Here's hoping- it would be a lot of fun to come up on another Strasburg game with a six game win streak behind us.

In Lannan's last start against the Fish, he allowed the leadoff man to get on in 5 of his 6 innings of work. Even with help from double plays Lannan needs to keep Bonifacio off of the basepaths. The last time Lannan faced the Fish he walked Bonifacio and of course he scored later that inning.Stanton is 2-6 career against Lannan and one of the hits is a HR. Stanton's favorite Nats pitcher is actually Livan Hernandez who he has had his most career HRs against (3).John's key to success tonight is keeping the leadoff man off-base and staying out of the Big Bopper's power zones.Lannan needs to turn his recent bad starts around and get into the 6th inning tonight. I think the same can be said for Strasburg tomorrow night keeping his pitch count low.

Heads up for SABR members and/or stat heads who get MLB Network (cut and pasted from a SABR email):MLB Network will premiere "Behind the Seams: The Stat Story", a special on the evolution of statistics in Major League Baseball, at 10 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, September 18, 2011. The hour-long program will be narrated by 22-time Emmy Award-winner Bob Costas.An MLB Productions crew spent five days at the 41st annual SABR convention this summer in Long Beach, California, filming interviews with SABR members for the show.Among the interviewees are Elias Sports Bureau's Steve Hirdt, MLB's official historian John Thorn, Baseball-Reference.com's Sean Forman, Sports Illustrated's Joe Sheehan, Fangraphs.com contributor Jonah Keri, New York Times writer Alan Schwarz, Rotisserie League Baseball creator Dan Okrent and SB Nation's Rob Neyer.

natsfan1a says:MLB Network will premiere "Behind the Seams: The Stat Story", a special on the evolution of statistics in Major League Baseball, at 10 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, September 18, 2011. The hour-long program will be narrated by 22-time Emmy Award-winner Bob Costas.I'm not smart about stats, but I will be watching. Thanks for the alert!

With two left fielders, no balls should drop in. You can have one play shallow and the other deep. On the other hand, you can expect a couple of inside the park home runs for hits down the right field line.

Natsfan1a reports:An MLB Productions crew spent five days at the 41st annual SABR convention this summer in Long Beach, California, filming interviews with SABR members for the show.What, I wonder, was second prize?

btw. saw debbie talking to desi on masn pregame. here's my desmond story…i was singing the anthem at a game, and hanging by the BP area waiting for a sound check when a woman in a wheelchair was wheeled down to the area. i assumed there was some kind of special favor for a handicapped fan going on. she had her back to the plate and was posing for a picture when desmond saw her, waved at the friend to wait on the picture, jumped up and ran behind the lady in the chair. knelt down, said hello, put his arm around her and smiled for the picture with her. then said goodbye and ran back toward the plate and back to work. the woman was thrilled.he had nothing to gain by being nice, other than to make a fan happy. it was really a nice moment.

Johnny and FP in the booth tonight. Sounds like a good night to synchronize the radio/MLB App audio and the DVR.I heard Dave Jags interview Todd Coffey on the radio pre-game as I was driving home from work. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good Coffey sounded on the radio. Very confident, articulate and witty. I don't think I heard a single cliche answer in a 7- to 9-minute interview.

Boy howdy, I'm having an unpleasant flashback to last Saturday, the last game I saw live.Three runs in three innings is an ERA of 9.00. Nice throw to first by Desi to end the inning, but Lannan needs to figure out how to get outs.

FP and Johnny are talking about the Nats ending up in third place, as if they can't see the game going on in front of them.Uh, guys? It's 3-0 Fish after three innings. Losing to the fifth place team won't keep them in third place.

Steve M. said… In Lannan's last start against the Fish, he allowed the leadoff man to get on in 5 of his 6 innings of work. Even with help from double plays Lannan needs to keep Bonifacio off of the basepaths. The last time Lannan faced the Fish he walked Bonifacio and of course he scored later that inning._________________________I think Lannan has allowed the leadoff hitter of each inning on 4 of the 5 innings so far.

Stammen or Gorzelanny? Although, even though he is struggling, they didn't score in the 4th or 5th. Maybe he just stays out there tonight and eats it – throws about 120 pitches and gets his ship righted. It really must look like batting practice to them after facing Cliff Lee last night, though. I think the offense got left behind in NY. Usually when we have a big offensive game it evaporates on the next one.

Johnny Holliday seems like a nice enough man but his role is to be the yes-man for Ray Knight. He compliments him, laughs at his jokes and agrees with everything he says.Maybe he is better at college football.

Did we give up on Bonifacio because he was such light hitter or because we had too many middle infielders? Now he is a great hitter, Nyger is hitting a lot better. Do these people just have better batting coaches now or did we not give them enough time to learn? Not that I want the whole tplush act back in town – just wondering if the people who leave us get better – Hanrahan? Do we not give them enough of a chance or do they need a change of scenery? Milledge never got better in Pittsburgh, I think he might be out of the game now, as are many players who had their final chances here, or shortly after. I always feel badly about Ryan Church's career – I really liked him and feel that the Mets ruined him by pushing him back after a serious concussion.

Charlie and Dave are riffing on hard-to-pronounce player names. They're going nuts with "Marrero," which apparently Dave messed up earlier.Reminds me of when Dave and FP were in the TV booth last night and earlier. Funny stuff.

I was right there, Dave, until FP reminded me of the Mariners game when we were down 5 runs in the 9th and staged a stunning comeback. Nice to see Craig Stammen doing well, I have always liked him. Time, though,is ticking away…tick,tick,tick. ACHIB @9:14 – his rant was pretty epic.

Why is Bonifacio not out on that play? He clearly ran inside the baseline to interfere with the okay and succeeded! Earlier this year, Bernadina got called out on a similar play but his route had no impact on the play.

As it turns out – it wouldn't have mattered if Lannan had only given up one. The Nats pitchers continue to be dogged by lack of run support. They trotted some out for the rookies, then it went away. Of course, we were playing the Mets at their absolute worst. I thought maybe the fish were, too, but they were playing the Phils so that has something to do with it. It would be nice to see SS put a good game together and have some offense – all in the same game.

Well, it was a one-error game by the Nats (Desi), and only 3 left on base. One bad baserunning error and one very good double play.The problem was that the Nats could not get any hits when it made any difference.Ever hear tell of that before?

On the way home we heard Phil say Davey wants to see what he has. When We saw Cora in the on-deck circle, we were wondering what Davey needs to see about a 35-year-old .220 hitter. And Pudge standing next to him who hasn't seen an at bat since JC was a corporal. Pudge deserves a shot now and then, to say the least.

Dave at 10:04–um, one bad baserunning error? Bixler and…did you see Danny get nailed at second, when he had no reason to stretch it and was doomed? When we had two hits AFTER we had a man on first and failed to score?I laugh about all the Nationals hype. Boswell, Wood, Zuckerman. Check the paper tomorrow and see how FEW teams in MLB are further out of first place than we are! But according to the hype, we are RIGHT THERE. Check the standings tomorrow and see how RIGHT THERE we actually are!

@Anon 11:01, according to what Nationals hype? I do not read any hype about the Nationals–certainly not from the people you cited. None of those guys say that we are "right there." FP and Carp do over-hype the team rather frequently, and I just couldn't keep listening to Holliday and Santangelo last night.But I don't hear Mark Z., Phil W., or Boz say the Nats are "right there." I consistently hear them say the Nats are a year or two away. Which seems about right to me, too.And I'm looking at the standings right now. The Nats are tied for third place–albeit tenuously, since they're playing their all-time nemesis team this weekend–behind the team with the best record in all baseball and the NL wild-card leader.Any hype, I think, is probably your hyperventilating about how far out of first place we are.